The Writing On The Wall Is Green, Not Black

“GE’s deal-making worsened its exposure to fossil fuels. Rather than transforming into a clean energy powerhouse, GE doubled down on fossil fuels in 2015 by acquiring Alstom’s power business, which makes coal-fueled turbines. The $9.5 billion deal was GE’s biggest-ever industrial purchase and made GE Power its largest division. GE also increased its oil and gas footprint by merging those businesses with Baker Hughes (BHGE) last year.

GE Power is in shambles today because power plants are increasingly ordering solar and wind technology instead of gas and coal turbines. As GE’s (GE GENERAL ELECTRIC CO) orders have tumbled, it’s been forced to offer deep discounts on products and services. Now, the business is grappling with massive overcapacity. In response, GE Power recently announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs in a bid to shrink its footprint and slash $1 billion in costs.”

It’s been clear to me for years, clean renewable solar/wind/renewable energy is a better deal in every way: lower costs for energy and less maintenance. It’s sad that GE had to learn the lesson the hard way by losing on its investment in a big way. Let’s hope they invest in greener energy sooner rather than later. It’s not enough to cut back on dirty energy. They have to go green to keep up with the rest of the world.

Ten years ago TLW and I made a big investment in renewable energy. We bought a solar/geothermal heated house. Our heating costs are much lower than using fossil fuel and we have lower maintenance and no pollution. This year, I will also buy my first battery-powered EV and a solar charging station for it. I’ll be laughing all the way to my grave over skipping gasoline pumps and oil-changes. GE, get with the programme.

About Robert Pogson

I am a retired teacher in Canada. I taught in the subject areas where I have worked for almost forty years: maths, physics, chemistry and computers. I love hunting, fishing, picking berries and mushrooms, too.

40 Responses to The Writing On The Wall Is Green, Not Black

Grece reason for welding everything is that you are sending a robot into a volcano at Antarctica. Fixes your thermal expand/contract and vibration problem breaching the seals.

Tell us, why would anyone weld the head of an engine to the block?

Why you have a 100 percent weld assembled fuel engine is its on a one way trip like into a volcano and bolts/threading/seals are just extra failure points and you don’t care about repair because that not going to be possible any how.

So modern EV batteries are built like fuel engines you send on one way trips into volcanoes.

So Grece this is you being a clueless moron attacking me over other fact that is a real item that is made and DrLoser attempting to personally attack me. Have you not worked it out yet almost ever time DrLoser attacks me you are wrong and should have shut up Grece.

Robert… I never moved the goal post you dimwit!! You mentioned something about cruise-missiles to somehow add window-dressing to FiFi’s ill-fated analogy, so as to explain why anyone would weld injectors into an engine.

Not ONLY did your attempts fails miserable I may add, but your definitions simply do not apply. Any mechanic, which isn’t you by the way, can explain the difference between each. Your failure to comprehend this fact is laughable.

No wonder you taught IT to Nunavut children, as you couldn’t teach anything else it seems.

Deaf Spy really you last compare was with electric cars requiring custom hard to repair battery packs. Not vehicles able to take [random gibberish link]

Give it up, Fifi. Your ability to engage in anything like an informed discussion is akin to, if not lower than, the ability of a baboon to fellate itself. Your “links” were never very well-directed, but quite frankly they are now bordering on the absurd.

Put that red leather miniskirt back on. Buy yourself a new pair of fishnet stockings. Go back under that dimly powered road light at the intersection between nowhere, and nowhere very much.

It’s not just the only way you can make money. It’s the only way you’ll ever get noticed.

Oh, and by the way, don’t bother to shave your legs. Sheep farmers prefer them hairy.

Grece, again moving goal-posts, wrote, “Turbofan engines do not even use injectors, they use fuel nozzles.”

“fuel injector, a device for actively injecting fuel into an internal-combustion engines by directly forcing the liquid fuel into the combustion chamber at an appropriate point in the piston cycle; — an alternative to a carburetor, in which an air-fuel mixture is drawn in by the downward stroke of the piston.
[1913 Webster]”

Grece wrote, “NO ON welds fuel injectors onto an engine, NO ONE, as if they did, and said injectors go bad, then you scrap the entire engine.”

So, you build a fire-and-forget cruise-missile and you want to be able to service the injectors? The thing costs $1million and it’s about to explode at its destination… Why wouldn’t you use welding to cut manufacturing costs?

Well Robert, only YOU would defend a known liar and someone that has an IQ of 70. In all seriousness, NO ON welds fuel injectors onto an engine, NO ONE, as if they did, and said injectors go bad, then you scrap the entire engine.

Grece, showing complete lack of imagination, wrote, “Anyone stupid enough to weld an injector into an engine, will soon discover that said injector does not function due to heat damage, not mention the possible fire from explosive combustible gases.”

That’s just silly. Injectors can be designed to be welded. Folks will do things like that when cost matters or weight or repairability matter. Almost everything I design of steel is designed to be welded. It’s easier, faster, and cheaper. Buy bolts sometime and count the cost of storage and inventory… Figure in whether or not that bolt will ever be removed. It’s unlikely on planes or missiles designed for one-way trips.

You can look at a lot of EV batteries as like you have a car with a failed injector that you have having to replace the complete engine because someone welded the injector into the head and also welded the head to the engine block.

Deaf Spy really you last compare was with electric cars requiring custom hard to repair battery packs. Not vehicles able to take http://vruzend.com/ or equal.

This makes a very big difference. Rectangular mounts like the solo support putting vruzend and equal inside is no problem. Also battery layout in the solo means battery can be repaired by cutting segments out and piece by piece replacing segments.

The reality when most EV batteries are not useful in a EV less than 10 percent of the cells have in fact failed.

You can look at a lot of EV batteries as like you have a car with a failed injector that you have having to replace the complete engine because someone welded the injector into the head and also welded the head to the engine block.

Really it would be simpler for a robotic production to assemble a car engine by welding it than doing up bolts. We don’t buy most fuel engines that cannot be repaired/dissembled. Please don’t think this has not happened before some of the very early fuel cars were in fact weld engine assembly so there was not things to vibrate lose also where not popular due to not being repairable.

EV in batteries still have to mature to having repairable batteries.

Think about cost if all EV from maker were repairable design they would only in most cases need to store cells and mounting sections not individual battery packs for each car. Why are they not wanting to-do this it called greed.

If the battery pack is repairable when it fails cost is way different the repair shops would make the profit not the company making the EV.

Last time I brought you numbers, comparing two very similar vehicles in terms of size, functionality and accessories. One EV and one ICV. I showed you that one can hardly hope to break even before the battery of the EV dies a quiet death.

Waterfalls are interesting. Above some cold temperature they won’t freeze at all because the moving water has kinetic energy and gains energy in falling. So, they are a weird, complex form of thermometer and they certainly don’t care about the temperature in the rest of the world. This cold snap is about the instability of the cold air in the Arctic. It should be up there but, with global warming, the poles are warming faster than the rest of us and nothing works as usual. They are an early warning system for Earth and they are screaming at us that the end is near if we don’t get off this fossil fuel kick. Earth took millions of years to absorb a lot of CO2 and we are putting it back in a few hundred years. It’s just a stupid thing to do. Nature cannot keep up with such a rapid change. We are seeing the turbulent effects of our actions. Renewable energy will help. Planting trees will help. I’m trying to do both. What about you?

Last time I brought you numbers, comparing two very similar vehicles in terms of size, functionality and accessories. One EV and one ICV. I showed you that one can hardly hope to break even before the battery of the EV dies a quiet death.

Deaf Spy went on about Niagara Falls freezing but failed to note that it’s warmer in Resolute at the moment than Winnipeg. This cold air that should be in the Arctic has slid off. Someone left the door open on the refrigerator of the world. Thus, the Arctic ice sheets are melting on average, raising sea levels and global temperatures. While we are 10C below normal these days, the Arctic is 10C above normal. That matters. The temperature of the oceans matters. That Niagara freezes doesn’t matter globally.

Deaf Spy wrote, “You still can’t prove even the simple claim that an EV is cheaper than ICV, all other conditions being equal.”

Well, 200 MPGe is better than 25 MPG, last time I checked. That’s what Solo can do for energy-consumption but there’s also the lower cost of maintenance of electric motors versus ICEs. Go check your refrigerator. I’ll bet you have an electric motor humming back there somewhere. Why not a good old ICE? Oh, you don’t want oil-changes, heat, noise, and 1000 hour maintenance periods, eh? It’s the same for an automobile.

It’s been clear to me for years, clean renewable solar/wind/renewable energy is a better deal in every way: lower costs for energy and less maintenance.

Unfortunately for you, this has been clear to only you and a bunch of delusioned greenies. While greenies are screaming their lungs out how CO2 emissions are causing global warming, Niagara Falls just froze.

Btw, I find it embarrassing that you fail to do the math to prove your claims. You still can’t prove even the simple claim that an EV is cheaper than ICV, all other conditions being equal.

Now there is demand for gasolines too, but if it happens that demand for gasoline declines while demand for jet fuel stays intact, one can except changes in the oil refinery process, since wasting the gasoline would be very, well, wasteful.
Thing to remember passenger/cargo jets are after the most cost effective fuel source.

Most people don’t consider how much power a passenger jet is burning when it sitting on the runway with its engines off with passengers on board this all has to be supported by the on-board batteries. It was not much of step to start using these batteries for taxing around the runways or using it to boost engine power on take-off.

Next step was of course using the full electric for take off and landing without burning fuel. Why this reduces aircraft noise on take off and landing at this point hybrid came beneficial to cargo. Because lower the noise of you aircraft the latter you can land at a lot of airports due to noise restrictions.

Once you are doing take-off and landing on pure electric as some are doing now the next question comes how far can you fly on electric and be cost effective. Greece to London in a single hop is about the upper limit. That is over 80% of all flights are under that distance.

The demand for gasoline in cars is reducing. But with the new designs of cargo and passenger jets engine systems that gasoline could end up in jets not having to be cracked down into current day jet fuel. The demand for current day jet fuel is not ensured to remain the same over the next decade. Between electric jets and hybrid jets doing different hops fully on battery and the cargo and passenger jets taking a broader range of fuel you will see the demand for current day jet fuel reduce. Of course hybrid jets being able to use gasoline may mean the demand for gasoline may not drop off as fast either.

Results of the aircraft and ground vehicle changes are going cause those running refineries a lot of questions about what fuel types they should be producing. Most of the types that were presumed to be secure into the future and being encroached by hybrids with broad fuel acceptance.

Yes, polymerization costs money and energy, so it won’t be done unless necessary. Now there is demand for gasolines too, but if it happens that demand for gasoline declines while demand for jet fuel stays intact, one can except changes in the oil refinery process, since wasting the gasoline would be very, well, wasteful.

Of course it is also very possible that the jets will switch to non-oil based power sources.

Well_well really Kurkosdr is right. 4 times less compared to current standard formulas of jet fuel to standard gasoline . Some of the losses is if you have to perform cracking. Yes gasoline is using polymerization to go the other way. Both cracking and polymerization consume power. Basically Well_well the problem is you don’t convert stuff without a cost and if you design items than can burn broader fuel cleanly and effectively there is a lot more yield on offer .

Now disconnecting the turbine power plant from the turbofan and using generation on the turbine and motor on the turbofan allows you to use more fuel from a barrel of crude by being able to use more direct distillation levels not wasting power converting it.

So there is more fuel for these new design per barrel of oil than either gasoline or current jet fuel.

These changes means we could see jets flying on like bio-diesel or ethanol or methanol or random blends. So even if jets remain fuel burning does not mean they will be dependent on crude oil with the current changes.

So as aircraft change to the split between generator and turbofan the fuel market will change as the grade of fuel they require change.

Grece please check the picture on that link. Its not a 75MW electric engine required. Its a 2MW engine. The 4 engines on the A340 only total up to 8MW.

Rolls-Royce AE 2100 engine in tail has the same core as all the turboprops.

But there are a few big difference splitting the engine. Rolls-Royce AE 2100 can burn a border range of fuel than the Rolls-Royce AE 3007 turbofan even that they are the same engine core. Turbofan due to the large fan cannot take engine stutter due to poor quality fuel. Its why there are military aircraft using normal props on front of the Rolls-Royce AE 2100 so those aircraft can burn diesel if they have to. So putting the generator turbine in the body of aircraft and disconnected from the turbo prop opens up the fuel grades the aircraft can run on everything from jet fuel to diesel.

Next since the generator in the tail with batteries can in fact support 2 engines with battery assist. You have in fact reduced your over all aircraft weight. Why because the batteries and the alternator in the turbo fan engine would have been on the aircraft anyhow. The electronic engine turbofan replacement + batteries + generator in fact ends up lighter so improves MTOW/MGTOW/MTOM limits.

Also the generator in tail of aircraft is able to operate at optimal rotational spend for cleanest and highest power generation. So higher fuel efficiency in fact a lot higher fuel efficiency.

The Boeing triple seven hosts dual 110K HP turbines with a thrust-to-weight ratio: approx. 6.3:1. Having stated that, 100K HP works about to roughly 75MW of power, and would be equivalent to a supertanker engine.
That is the worst engine that can be fitted to a Boeing 777.https://www.geoilandgas.com/sites/geog.dev.local/files/ge_tms_lm9000_brochure-041817-pages.pdf
This is currently the best. Note its a max of 65MW but the thing is hi-bred. Gas turbine only provide up to 54MW of power the other 11MW come from the electric and batteries. Interesting part is the full 65MW can come from the electric alone. This design kind of had to be done for aircraft that don’t have in tail generators.

What is going on here the old engine before the LM9000 for the 777 had generators to powering the avionics and onboard items of course this is battery backed up. So just like the airbus there are already big power cables running from the engines into the body of aircraft in the Boeing. The LM9000 has equal to your car alternator so it can be used as a generator or as a motor. A 777 with its backup batteries upgraded with LM9000 can take off get to 10000 feet and land again without burning any fuel.

Greece I missed a 6 critical point.
6) Heat seeker shoulder launch ground to air missiles are absolutely worthless against an aircraft that takes off or lands using full electric. Because the engines are cold.

So like it or not be it Boeing or Airbus you will be flying hybrid and at times be flying on full electric. So the idea that jet aircraft are fulling running on oil these days is wrong. Yes the aircraft batteries can be under charge from the airport while the aircraft is being loaded or waiting so a lot of flights are already part grid part oil. Its only a matter of time until we see more full grid powered flights.

So a triple seven would have two of these on each wing, in addition to electric motors of comparable size, and this is a GOOD thing according wonder-boy.
Grece the moron electric motors of comparable size are already fitted on combination with fuel engines in jets. With the fuel engines in fact not being able to provide enough HP alone. The electric engine in those hybrid can in fact provide all the HP. Why is the electric so powerful it so if you have shut the fuel part of the engine down due to fire and the electric engine parts are still fine you can still pull full thrust out that engine using the batteries if you have to.

Pointing to a ground based engine just showed how clueless Grece is. The hybrids work out safer than pure fuel jet engines. The pure electric thrust engines with generator work out lighter because for every pair of electrical thrust engines you only need 1 generator of it capacity. Thrust jet engines don’t spend very long at 100 percent or at optimal speeds this is its 2 to one in generators. So you can have 2 fuel engines in both thrust engines or 1 fuel engine in body with 2 electric thrust engines and achieve the same results with the fuel engine better protected.

So this now comes a balancing act between safety and weight. The day of a passenger/cargo jet with all pure fuel engines is coming to the end. The days of every passenger/cargo flight burning fuel on board is also coming to the end.

So pointing to passenger/cargo jet and attempt to use those as excuses against electrics and hybrid cars/trucks is a big mistake because hybrids in passenger/cargo jets are already deployed with pure electric coming.

So Kurkosdr flight could be on a hybrid. Its really hard to tell since the outside of the engines be them hybrid, full electric or full fuel on jets look absolutely identical.

Please note changing to onboard generators driving electric engines on wings also means lower grades of fuel would be possible to use in aircraft as well.

Please note, you’re an idiot!

Tell us, what is powering those generators?

What aerospace engineer designs generators to drive electric engines, when they can just use turbines on the wings!? You scenario won’t work and overly complicates things, not to mention, places any aircraft over MTOW/MGTOW/MTOM limits.

The Boeing triple seven hosts dual 110K HP turbines with a thrust-to-weight ratio: approx. 6.3:1. Having stated that, 100K HP works about to roughly 75MW of power, and would be equivalent to a supertanker engine. See blow:

Please note changing to onboard generators driving electric engines on wings also means lower grades of fuel would be possible to use in aircraft as well.

So aircraft fuel usage will reduced as long as we don’t add any more flights. Yes it will work against putting on more flights thinking the big A380 in hybrid will burn the same volume of fuel or less than A320 to cover the same distance even that A380 has double the number of seats.

London to Greece is technically short haul inside a decade this could be fully serviced by full electric aircraft. Of course this does bring the problem how is the electrical grid going to cope when it has to charge all these aircraft.

The presume that aircraft are going to be consuming oil based fuel in a large way ignores the electric with generators coming that will do short haul on batteries charged from grid if possible.

The coming decade is going to bring quite a few issues as we reduce the volume of Oil we are using and swap to other sources.

Passenger jets run on jet fuel last time I checked (I am flying to Greece tomorrow so a will brief you on whether this still holds true, but I suspect it does), and judging from the fact airplanes need energy storage with a high energy density, this will hold true for many decades to come, so there will be a market for oil in the foreseeable future.
Kurkosdr prototypes have short haul being full electric with long haul being hybrid for Passenger Jets in a decade.

There are major reasons for this change to hybrid.

Using electric motors on props/turbofans with generator in body of aircraft provide the following advantage.s
1) Simple to protect fuel burning engine from bird strike and volcanic ash with them inside the body of aircraft. Electric thrust engines don’t turn into a flame hazard when badly damaged.
2) Generator spinning at ideal speed requires less fuel to generate the same power even allowing for the losses charging a battery.
3) Lower Noise when taking off and landing for those living on flight paths.
4) Lower cabin noise.
5) Reduced maintenance cost as the electric engines have fewer parts than the fuel engines and lack the thermal wear.

This conversion will not mean all new aircraft. The Airbus A380 and A340 will be able to be retro fitted with their two inner engines replaced by electrics.

Yes A380 and A340 have 5 engines. 4 on the wings and 1 in the tail. The 1 in the tail is already a generator. The two nearest engines to body have power cables that can be used for recharging the avionics power system in case the engine in tail fails. The fun part about this change is the electric drive engines can act as wind turbines so the two outer engines can provide forwards motion in failure state.

So converting A380 and A340 to hybrid is straight forwards. Seal off the fuel and oil lines to the two inner engines and mount the two electrics in that location. Upgrade the generator engine in tail and upgrade the battery bank in aircraft and add a recharging port so short haul can be done on full electric without running any of the 3 fuel engines. Basically all the cabling is already in place.

Of course newer designs from the ground up will see two fuel engines in the body and all electrics on the wings. Projections is about 1/8 of the current fuel burn when not using the batteries. This should come the common in the next decade.

I wonder whether there will be market for that oil within a few years.

Stop wondering, there will be one.

Passenger jets run on jet fuel last time I checked (I am flying to Greece tomorrow so a will brief you on whether this still holds true, but I suspect it does), and judging from the fact airplanes need energy storage with a high energy density, this will hold true for many decades to come, so there will be a market for oil in the foreseeable future.

To give you a sense of what I am talking about, I plan to take 3 round-trips from London to Greece during the next year, which is a flying distance of 15000 km (each round trip is 5000km).

An Airbus A320 burns 2.5L per seat per 100km, which adds to 375 litres per seat for those 3 round-trips, which is the average consumption per year of a small car.

And I didn’t have to mention that each barrel of crude gives 4 times less jet fuel than it gives gasoline.

So, don’t worry, the oil barons will be fine. Coal is on more shaky ground though.

Most people underestimate just how much jet fuel per seat passenger jets burn because politicians deceptively lump it together on “transportation”, because many people assume that “transportation” means “mostly cars” which fits the politicians’ agenda of demonizing gasoline cars and making affordable gasoline cars go extinct (which would force many people to use public transport which is owned by the politicians and a major source of pork barrel).

Delivery is promised Q2 of 2018.

How many vehicles has EMV delivered so far? Until you get your tricycle, you are using your wife’s pickup-truck-in-denial for all your long-distance mobility. So, although it is commendable you improved your house’s energy efficiency, you are not green right now. Greetings fellow planet-heater.

Robert, you’re as dense a lump of depleted uranium. Did I even mention EV’s? No…but just a reminder, everything uses oil! Every part in an EV can be traced back to some sort of oil consumption. The paint, oil based. The tires, uses synthetic rubber’s derived from oil, the list is endless!

Not exactly. EVs don’t use much oil, just grease for bearings (and that might be synthetic) and tires. Also, some Canadian oil isn’t getting into pipelines because those lines are full and new lines are not happening so it’s trucking or nothing. That means people are selling that oil really cheaply. That’s not an inspiring market.

Grece wrote, “you can accomplish the very same, by riding a bike or at the very least walking”.

I do walk to vote and to get the mail most of the time but my hunting, shooting, gathering and medical places are too far to make that practical. There are a couple of shopping places within range too but they have limited inventory, some overpriced plants and groceries. In my life, I’ve walked as far as 25 miles at one go but it took hours during which I could repot some plants or kill some weeds or …

I’ll be laughing all the way to my grave over skipping gasoline pumps and oil-changes.

It is amazing that you are willing to spend serious money to gloat over this fact, when you can accomplish the very same, by riding a bike or at the very least walking.

GE, get with the programme.

Unlike you Robert, GE has countless heads to figure out things and understand what makes them money. They can afford to take losses, just like Microsoft to redirect itself. GE spends countless billions on R&D, while you, well, you purchase junk from China and rig it together hoping it to work.

You surely are short-minded Robert. It takes a long-term mindset to invest in oil stocks. An investor has to have one as the industry has a history of booms, busts, and subsequent recoveries. Just like an oil company investing in a new well, the key to success in oil stocks is to invest with a focus that is years if not decades into the future.

Take a look at both ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP). investors that bought and held these stocks have done very, very well over the decades. Tell us, what were you doing in the 80s?

Tax cuts
Border security
New drilling
I’m starting to like this winning thing…..MAGA!

Grece wrote, “The latest tax bill signed by Trump opens up ANWR for oil and it seems that Vogtle 3 and 4 is going to be completed by 2022.”

I wonder whether there will be market for that oil within a few years. Heating and motive power are the heaviest users of oil and motive is drying up and heating is just about dry now. I think it would be a bad investment except maybe a small investment for a local market.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.